When you peel back the layers of corrupt Government, at the core of the rotten onion you find lawyers

Anne Block, ex-lawyer and journalist, learned how corrupt government officials of the city of Gold Bar WA were scamming taxpayers and those citizens who were poor or disadvantaged for profit. When Anne began reporting about these Gold Bar officials the WA State Bar and even WA State Supreme Court justices began a campaign of defamation and extortion against Anne to silence Anne’s reporting about Gold Bar’s corrupt officials.

Death threats, false reports and various modes of harassment were levied against her by WA State Bar lawyers and law firms. But Anne Block is a warrior. The more these despicable public officials and lawyers worked to silence Anne, the more she ‘investigated’ and learned of the inner workings of these people — these criminals. And what she learned is ‘chilling.’

Anne Block has just filed a “RICO Statement” that reads like a soap opera of some fictional town and its corrupt government. But this is no soap opera. It is the stark truth in what happens when government officials under the protection of WA Lawyers operates for their own wealth and power in direct opposition to their constitutional purpose — to protect and maintain individual rights.

Here is Anne’s RICO Statement that was filed yesterday in US District Court for the Western District of WA RICO STATEMENT

Today we are pleased to announce to the public release of a 110 page RICO statement that defines a RICO conspiracy that centers around public officials in Gold Bar Washington and the Washington State Bar Association. These documents were filed in a federal case that was filed in the United States District Court, Western District of Washington Case No. 2:14-cv-00235-RAJ. The complaint documents the greatest assault on freedom of the press in the history of the United States.

Anne Block has achieved a degree of notoriety in Snohomish County as the only reporter in the state to break a story involving corruption at the highest levels of government in Snohomish county. Chief Executive Reardan was forced to resign after a story published in the Gold Bar Reporter revealed that Reardan used taxpayer funds to finance affairs with two women employees.

According to the complaint, Anne Block even had receipts to show airline tickets purchases, hotel receipts and receipts for sex toys used in Europe during the affair.

According to the complaint, before Reardan resigned, he assigned two employees to organize a “false flag” operation against Block, by having the employees pose as disinterested observers with aliases to organize a campaign to disbar Block. He had another employee destroy county records to hide the affair. That employee was eventually convicted of destroying evidence. As a result of the evidence being destroyed, an Island County prosecutor concluded that he did not have enough evidence to prosecute Reardan for misuse of public funds.

In enlisting support for the bar complaints, the false flag operation gained the support of two other Block targets. John Pennington had been attacked in the press by Anne Block and other newspapers such as the Seattle Times and the Everett Herald as being unqualified to hold the position of emergency operations director of Snohomish County. According to a study conducted by the IRS, Pennington received his college degree from a diploma mill which sold the degrees at a flat rate.

According to the RICO complaint, Block published stories how Reardan acted on Pennington’s advise in allowing houses to be built on the Oso mudslide site even though professional engineers described the site as unsafe. The mudslide that eventually occurred resulted in the deaths of 43 citizens.

Pennington could not sue directly because he is a public official, so he turned to the Washington State Bar Association in an attempt to have Block disbarred for doing the stories documenting Pennington’s incompetence.

The false flag operation also enlisted the support of public officials in Gold Bar Washington, who had their own problems with Block. Block had initiated a public disclosure suit when the town officials refused to turn over documents related to the theft of the towns funds.

According to the complaint, town officials illegally diverted approximate 20% of the town’s budget to finance a campaign to discredit Block. This included planting defamatory and false information in a friendly paper, physically assaulting, stalking, and intimidating Block supporters, assaulting and stalking two city council members until they resigned for supporting Block. Members of the RICO enterprise even published verbal threats in local newspapers to murder Block if she showed up at City Council meetings.

According to Block, WSBA officials fixed the case against her by pre-selecting a hearing officer to guarantee conviction. The WSBA’s practice of paying a hearing officer to pre-select judges has come under fire in previous suits and is now the subject of an appeal in the Ninth Circuit, Scannell v. WSBA Ninth Circuit #14-35582

According to Block’s complaint, the WSBA chief hearing officer pre-selected a business associate, who had formed a partnership with a convicted killer to form a construction company that profitted from the Oso building site. The hearing examiner also has been accused of using the convicted killer to intimidate vulnerable adults so that the hearing officer could unfairly profit from guardianships she had been appointed to. That hearing officer has already had a finding signed by a Superior Court Judge ordering her to return funds she stole from a client account.

According to Block’s complaint there are other cases including one where she purchased a client’s house for $15,000 that was assessed at $208,000.

According to two witnesses, the hearing officer prevented Block from participating at her hearing by muting out the phone connection through which Block had appeared because of her hearing disability. Then, the hearing officer concluded that Block should be disbarred for not participating.

According to Block’s complaint, what happened to her is typical of the practices of the Washington State Bar Association. The Washington State Supreme Court has come under heavy criticism from the American Bar Association in three separate studies over 40 years for delegating its disciplinary activities to the WSBA, a practice the ABA likens to putting the fox in charge of the hen house.

According to the complaint, Washington is one of the few remaining states that put its bar association in charge of lawyer discipline, with the result that Washington has one of the lowest charging rates of attorney discipline in the nation. The complaint charges that attorney discipline is focused almost entirely on sole practitioners, minorities and enemies of the WSBA leadership.

According to the complaint, 44% of all attorney discipline comes out of Snohomish County. Block charges the reason this occurs is that two WSBA officials in Snohomish County improperly use their influence to direct discipline toward their opponents. Block charges that these two officials improperly contacted the Gold Bar City Council, illegally provided them with confidential information, in violation of the Rules of Professional Conduct and the rules regarding enforcement of lawyer discipline before there were any bar complaints even filed. The suit also accuses one official of filing anonymous complaints to conceal the fact that he is improperly influencing the cases.

As a result of the information contained in her complaint, Block is demanding a federal grand jury investigation concerning the misuse of public funds by her opponents and the denial of her civil rights.

Discussion

2 thoughts on “When you peel back the layers of corrupt Government, at the core of the rotten onion you find lawyers”

Its so interesting that these individuals like Reardon and Pennington and Wallace and Dunn and Hazzelrigg, McCue and anyone one else that they lined up to serve in county posts get to continue with their corruption.
Did you check “Pacer” and figure out how many Bankruptcy’s they filed?

I know it is not illegal to file bankruptcy but if you have so many in one group ” you wonder”.
It goes from Laing (friend)that Kevin Wallace wanted to bring on to the Bellevue City Council. (Bankruptcy)
Reardon (relative) Bankruptcy.
Hazzelrigg and Mastro Bankruptcy.
McCue Real Estate service (Mary Jo Pfohl Bennett) Her relative and friend Bankruptcy. Her friend is John Carl Mason. Mason used to live at Salish village Condo. He got into a relationship with the wife of a tenant of Holly and Chris Oppfelt. His name is Oli Glenn. Mason used to live in an Apt. there and taxes where paid by McCue.

Chris Oppfelt works with the Wife of Erik Lacitis (journalist Seattle Times). Same Real Estate Company.
What I’m trying to show you that these Bankrupcy’s go from friends to friends. When I had a complaint about my condo complex and the corruption that is going on. I wrote to the Times and did not even get a (kiss my behind) letter.
No response and nothing. The Times did not want to rock the boat. They did not want to investigate why Karen Satterberg (sister of Dan Satterberg and friend of Kevin Wallace) is living in my complex. This is how they take over complexes by moving in their friends. They get condo complexes into Bankruptcy’s too. They use the legal system to take over complexes.

What I don’t understand is that the Newspaper and Government officials do not want to investigate this but using their focus on Block and Scannell to disbar them.
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After I recieved my letter of rejection from WSBA about my complained against Strichartz,
I made copies about how corrupt the WSBA is.I took everything and sent everything back to WSBA. This time they wrote back and told me that my complaint will go before their board for a hearing.
That was a month ago and I have not heard anything more. I’m sure they come up with a plan to do nothing because they will never touch their friends. Strichatz is the most unethical lawyer and should be disbard and I wonder why isn’t he and his friends? This whole corrupt group of business and friends and lawyers are all in Real Estate and development. They choose people for the supreme court to the Oso slide (contractors)

I am sure their aim is to strike the people that expose corruption in Wash. State. Since the corruption is so great in this state, there is really no were to turn to get any justice. I am forced to write to officials out of State.

I am very concered about what is going on. People buying their homes and are losing their rights to say anything because we have people that took over Bank accounts, choose their own companies (friends) for repair work and the list goes on.

To me this is nothing but domestic terrorism. This is very scary. And the State Government and their friends are allowing this to continue.

I, for one, would like to call upon the WSBA to substantively respond to the allegations made by Anne Block and not just file its usual motion for dismissal based upon arguments that the federal courts should not hear the case. The members of the Bar and the public deserve this. If Anne Block’s allegations truly have no merit, then the Bar should have no problem with showing us why.

The Washington State Supreme Court requires open government and full disclosure of public records for all other branches of government, but fails to require this same openness and public disclosure for its own Office of Disciplinary Counsel

Right now, ladies and gentlemen, the Office of Disciplinary Counsel has absolute power and no one – not the Bar, the Disciplinary Board, the Hearing Officer Panel or our Supreme Court – is interested in controlling them, even when the Office of Disciplinary Counsel lies to the Supreme Court. See the examples of Karen Unger and Robert Grundstein. A lawyer alleging misconduct on the part of the Office of Disciplinary Counsel has no recourse. Bar discipline at present seems to have a goal of simply trying to discipline as many attorneys as possible regardless of the evidence and even when the evidence is exculpatory.

Bar Grievances against lawyers in the ODC alleging misconduct that should result in disbarment or even prison time – misconduct that is more egregious than that of the Duke LaCrosse team prosecutor – are dismissed out of hand by the ODC themselves without any review. Such a system – where the agency alleged to have committed the misconduct “investigates” itself – may well be unprecendented.